Today we are educating about the rise of modern voter suppression. Our focus will be on the United State's Supreme Court's 2013 decision of Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 2 (2013), which ruled Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) unconstitutional.
Read MoreToday we honor the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the landmark legislation that outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. This 'act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution' was signed into law 95 years after the amendment was ratified.
Read MoreToday we honor Amelia Platts Boynton Robinson, a voting rights activist in the 1930s and a friend of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and other civil rights leaders in the 1950s and 1960s.
Read MoreToday we honor Fannie Lou Hamer, who was a seminal figure in the fight for African American voting rights and political power in the 1960's.
Read MoreToday we honor the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer project, an organized a voter registration drive aimed at dramatically increasing voter registration in Mississippi.
Read MoreHappy President’s Day! Today we honor the Children’s Crusade, which was the successful effort to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama.
Read MoreToday, we honor Ella Baker, one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.
Read MoreToday we honor George H. White, who was a lawyer and a Republican African American Congressman from North Carolina’s Second Congressional District (1899-1901).
Read MoreToday, we honor Mary McLeod Bethune, who was one of the 20th century’s most powerful and celebrated advocates for civil rights and suffrage.
Read MoreToday, we honor the First National Conference of the Colored Women of America held in August 1895 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Read MoreToday we honor the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlaws discrimination in voting rights on the basis of race, color, and previous condition of servitude; thereby advancing suffrage for African Americans (although only men could vote at that time).
Read MoreToday we honor Frederick Douglass. What would a series dedicated to those who advanced Black suffrage be without mention of Frederick Douglass, the man who advocated for suffrage for ALL African Americans, regardless of gender?
Read MoreOn February 9th, we honored both Robert Purvis, and his wife, Harriet Forten-Purvis. See their individual sections below to find out why!
Read MoreToday we honor Prince Hall of Boston, who was not only a registered voter of his day, but a staunch abolitionist and civil rights activist who used the power of petitions to effectively petition the government to gain rights for Blacks. This article exemplified the complexities of the fight for Black suffrage during a colonial era built on the immoral institution of slavery.
Read MoreToday we honor Anna Julia Cooper, who was an American educator, writer, and scholar remembered for her pioneering crusade for the upliftment of African-American women.
Read MoreToday we honor Mary Eliza Church Terrell, a strong advocate for Black woman suffrage, often highlighting the struggles that Black women had to go through that White women didn’t.
Read MoreToday we honor Maggie Lena Walker who organized pre-registration meetings, resulting in the highest rate of African American women registered to vote in Richmond that year.
Read MoreToday we honor Anna A. Clemons, who wrote the National Woman’s Party in 1920 about the disenfranchisement of women of color after ratification of the 19th Amendment. Nothing was done about her concerns.
Read MoreLearn about Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who was a journalist, civil rights activist, and suffragist who endlessly fought against racial and sexual discrimination.
Read MoreToday we honor Mary Ann Shadd Cary, who was an African-American teacher, journalist, lawyer, and suffragist.
Read More
